A dramatic thriller based on real events that reveals the quest to expose the deceptions and corruptions of power that turned an Internet upstart into the 21st century's most fiercely debated organization.
The story begins as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) team up to become underground watchdogs of the privileged and powerful. On a shoestring, they create a platform that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously leak covert data, shining a light on the dark recesses of government secrets and corporate crimes. Soon, they are breaking more hard news than the world's most legendary media organizations combined. But when Assange and Berg gain access to the biggest trove of confidential intelligence documents in U.S. history, they battle each other and a defining question of our time: what are the costs of keeping secrets in a free society-and what are the costs of exposing them?—DreamWorks Pictures
The movie opens with Assange hiring Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl), a fellow tech whiz, to help him keep his new website operational. The site gave whistle-blowers an entirely anonymous platform to share classified documents, and soon the pair find themselves in possession of information that will bring down a corrupt bank. As their power and influence grows, they must consider teaming with established media sources, especially when they are sent documents that would reveal ultra-sensitive state secrets from some of the world's most-powerful governments..
The story opens in 2010, with the release of the Afghan War Logs. It then flashes back to 2007, where journalist Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) meets Australian computer hacker Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for the first time, at the Chaos Computer Club event in Berlin. Daniel's interest in online activism has led him to Assange, with whom he has corresponded by email. They begin working together on WikiLeaks, a website devoted to releasing information being withheld from the public while retaining anonymity for its sources. Their first major target is a private Swiss bank, Julius Baer, whose Cayman Islands branch has been engaged in illegal activities. Despite Baer's filing of a lawsuit and obtaining an injunction, the judge dissolves the injunction, allowing Julian and Daniel to reclaim the domain name. As their confidence increases, the two push forward in publishing information over the next three years, including secrets on Scientology, revealing Sarah Palin's email account, and the membership list of the British National Party.
At first Daniel enjoys changing the world, viewing WikiLeaks as a noble enterprise and Assange as a mentor. However, the relationship between the two becomes strained over time. Daniel loses his job and problems arise in his relationship, particularly concerning the BNP membership leak, which also revealed the addresses of the people involved. Assange openly mocks Daniel's concerns about these issues, implying his own life has been more troubling. Assange's abrasive manner and actions, such as abandoning Daniel at his parents' house after having accepted their dinner invitation, only deepen the strain further. Interspersed throughout the film are flashbacks hinting at Assange's troubled childhood and involvement in a suspicious cult, and that Assange's obsession with WikiLeaks has more to do with childhood trauma than wanting to improve the world. Daniel begins to fear that Assange may be closer to a con-man than a mentor. He also notices that Assange constantly gives different stories about why his hair is white.
Assange at first tells Daniel that WikiLeaks has hundreds of workers, but Daniel later finds out that Daniel and Assange are the only members. Most importantly to Daniel, Assange frequently claims that protecting sources is the website's number one goal. However, Daniel begins to suspect that Assange only cares about protecting sources so people will come forward and that Assange does not actually care who gets hurt by the website, though Assange claims that the harm the website may cause is outweighed by good the leaks create. Daniel's girlfriend tells him that she believes in his cause, but that it's his job to prevent Assange from going too far.
The tensions come to a head when Bradley Manning leaks hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, including a video of an airstrike in Baghdad, the Afghan and Iraq War Logs, and 250,000 US Diplomatic Cables. Assange wants to immediately leak the documents, but Daniel insists that they review the documents first. Later, several major newspapers and WikiLeaks agree to work together to cooperate in releasing the documents while spinning WikiLeaks positively. However, a requirement of the newspapers and Daniel is that the names in the documents be redacted both to protect sources and to assist in the media spin, to which Assange reluctantly agrees. Daniel realizes that Assange has no intention of following through on this promise and is grooming a right hand man to replace Daniel. The redacted documents are eventually released by the newspapers, resulting in media and public uproar, forcing American informants to flee from their countries of residence and many America diplomats to resign. Before Assange can go further, however, Daniel and the other members of the original WikiLeaks team delete the site and block Assange's access to the server.
Daniel later talks with a reporter from The Guardian, and the two fear that giving Assange such a large platform was a mistake. The reporter tells Daniel that while Assange may be untrustworthy, he had done a good thing, uncovering secret dealing in the government and business world and attempting to protect sources. Daniel also reveals the real reason for Assange's hair - that it had been a custom of the cult he had been part of in Australia, also including that he once walked in on him dyeing it that color.
As the film ends, it is revealed that WikiLeaks is continuing to leak information (with Assange implied to have either regained the site or rebuilt it), and the Manning documents were released with no redaction. Daniel has written a book on his involvement with the organization on which this film was based, and Assange has threatened to sue in retaliation. Assange himself is shown to be living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in the wake of an outstanding warrant on sexual allegations. In an interview, he denounces the development of two upcoming WikiLeaks films, stating that they will be factually inaccurate (having been partly based on Daniel's book), and informs the viewer that individuals are what the government is afraid of. The real Assange claims that hiring Daniel was the one mistake he made.
